CANADIENS
Montreal

HURRICANES
Carolina

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

[one_half]Pacioretty – Danault – Radulov
Byron – Plekanec – Gallagher
Galchenyuk – Shaw – Lehkonen
Martinsen – McCarron – Mitchell
[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Markov – Weber
Emelin – Petry
Davidson – Benn
[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders

Price
Montoya

Scratches

Dwight King, Nathan Beaulieu, Brian Flynn, Nikita Nesterov, Steve Ott

Injured Reserve

Game Report

Following last weekend’s sweep of the home-and-home series, many reporters claimed that the Canadiens would easily coast to the Atlantic division title. When challenged, they pointed to the Habs schedule for the remainder of the season which featured just one playoff team.

Not so fast.

After managing to score just two goals total against the Red Wings and Hurricanes, the table is now set for round two. The Senators and Canadiens look to be meeting to decide first place in the division on Saturday. How could this happen?

Against Carolina, the first line could not generate any offensive pressure. How could this be? Alex Galchenyuk was bumped to the third line making way for Phillip Danault. In his own words following Thursday’s match, Danault’s game was “horrible.”

And what about faceoffs. Certainly with Galchenyuk playing the wing, the Canadiens success at the dot would improve? Not at all. Andrew Shaw was only successful on 29 per cent of his draws with Tomas Plekanec at a paltry 13 per cent.

Post-game, Claude Julien said that starting without the puck hurt his team. But faceoffs weren’t the only problem. Little to no offence for the top two lines left Julien frustrated and disappointed.

By this point in the year, lines should, for the most part, be settled. As should defensive pairings. But not for the Canadiens. Who is the number one centre? Who is in the top six? Who consistently plays the third pairing on defence?

Those are all open questions right now, and for Julien, he doesn’t have much time to find the answers.

~~~

▲     Alex Galchenyuk, Artturi Lehkonen, Jeff Petry

▼     Jordie Benn, Brandon Davidson, Tomas Plekanec, Phillip Danault, Max Pacioretty, Alexander Radulov

1.  Lee Stempniak  CAR
2.  Justin Faulk  CAR
3.  Jeff Skinner  CAR

• “Our effort was unacceptable. We lacked focus and we weren’t really on point. We went up against a team that’s been playing good hockey lately and they showed us why.”
• “They won a lot of the one-on-one battles. We didn’t win enough faceoffs and we were always running after the puck instead of starting out with it. Those things make it tough to win games. It’s an unacceptable effort by our entire group.”

Alex Galchenyuk

• “We talked about creating the lead in the locker room before the game. We got it, and then we felt like we let the game slip away from us. That’s unacceptable at home.”
• “We’ve got to find a way to look at our mistakes and bounce back because we play every other day. We’ve got to find a way to win the next one [on Saturday night].”
• “I thought we had a pretty good start. We created a lot of chances right away and I think Shawzy played great and Lehky, too. We battled hard. But, it’s not enough at the end. We wanted to create more, of course, but looking at the score being 4-1, it didn’t go our way. It’s tough looking back at the game.”

Max Pacioretty

• “We’re in a good spot right now. Let’s not get dramatic or carried away. We like our team. We’re trending the right way. This wasn’t a great game. We have some things we can work on, but let’s not take it too far.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com